Darn it. I seem to remember reading about centipedes in Tibetan Buddhism but I can't remember when and what the book said.

Was it in that Robert Beer book...

If anyone has The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs could you look up centipedes please?

EDIT: I looked in the e-book sample on amazon. The passage is cut-off but says it is one of the "five poisonous creatures" which are symbols for the five poisons. As the centipede is the third on the list I believe it is the symbol of Aversion.

Equanimity is the ground. Love is the moisture. Compassion is the seed. Bodhicitta is the result.

"All memories and thoughts are the union of emptiness and knowing, the Mind.Without attachment, self-liberating, like a snake in a knot.Through the qualities of meditating in that way,Mental obscurations are purified and the dharmakaya is attained."

I used the google books page and looked at Beer's encyclopedia of Tibetan Buddhist symbols and it said that lizards, toads, centipedes or spiders, scorpion, and snake represent the five poisons of ignorance, desire, hatred, jealousy, and pride (Beer, pg 75).

In page 844 of the document (its marked as 844 in the document itself; in the pdf reader - like Acrobat - the page is 864) you can read on the entry about "Visions":

"Dreaming scenes. If the events or scenes result from evil seeds, thepractitioner, in his dreams, may see various species of worms crawlingout of his body, or witness himself, night after night, removing fromhis body six or seven loathesome creatures with many limbs, such asscorpions or centipedes. "

[the underlines are mine]

I didnt found anything more on that ebook related to centipedes or scorpions.

I have always discussed my (strange) dreams with my teacher....I've had dreams of worms crawling out of my pores, and centipedes in beautiful bracelets....not always did I get a detailed explaination from my teacher......also i kept a dream diary.......dreams are important and significant in Tibetan Buddhism.....so I hope you discuss them with your teacher.....

Sometimes unpleasant things coming out is a sign of accomplishing Some practice or stage. However most dreams are karmic & it's best not to obsess or dwell too much on them in case they self perpetuate & just forget about it. Iinstead we are told to do dream practice preparation in daytime so we can eventually be aware & lucid in dreams making them useful.

username wrote:Sometimes unpleasant things coming out is a sign of accomplishing Some practice or stage.

Or it could also be a sign of purification. But as username noted, it is best not to dwell too much on it, unless the dreams are getting more and more disturbing.

If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you believe something is right or wrong, true of false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.

Hi there - I am new to this site... I found this thread because I too had a centipede dream two days ago and I was looking to get some more insight into its meaning. I had a powerful dream about a giant centipede (I mean 1-2 feet long!) a year ago and I knew it was VERY important. I read up about them and found a bit which said sometimes they represent a warning of psychic attack. This confirmed my feelings because I had asked for a dream about a particular person who works in the psychic field. I felt something was very wrong about this person who was involved in my life but it was hard for me to put my finger on why. Anyway, the dream (a huge centipede coming out of the ceiling light fitting (Crown Chakra) and roaming around the walls of a room in my house while carefully avoiding the windows,) made it clear to me that she was invading my psychic space and trying to gain power / influence over me. (This also fits in with the symbolism of them being 'poison/ous', powerful 'chiefs' and scary.) In this instance the centipede was definitely an outside influence which I needed to protect myself from. When I carefully started to end the friendship her reaction only confirmed the warning.

The dream I had the other day was a little more intimate - the centipede came out of my vagina (sorry to be graphic!). It started off as some kind of 'novel' phallus I could produce at will, then it turned into a long thick snake like creature which I noticed had legs and was black - but the head was of a chimpanzee!! It had stopped being a phallus attached to my body and became a creature that seemed to want me to look after it like a baby. In the dream I was relating to the chimp 'baby' and completely ignoring it's grotesque, alien body.(Chimpanzee represents the as yet unevolved 'animal' or base element of a human being.) I remember thinking in the dream - there is no way THAT is going back inside my body... but it didn't occur to me it was something toxic I needed to get rid of - I was too busy feeling responsible for its welfare. I have had a couple of days to meditate on the meaning of this dream and I hope it may shed some light on your own dream because I have realised that once again it is about a psychic attack - in this instance relating to my sexual history with men. Someone mentioned in the post about cleansing - and that is exactly what I feel has happened; an 'evil seed' that was literally planted in my vagina through sexual assault when I was a child has finally, after many many years of work, been expelled! (Since the dream I have used visualisation to take the predator and burn it on the fire of transformation. I tried to banish it because I felt really guilty burning it, but it came back so I felt I had to for self preservation.)

Both dreams have come at very important points in my journey of spiritual development and this leads me to the conclusion that centipede in a dream is a very important sign. In your case it was your meditation beads that turned into the centipede which suggests you need to look at your spiritual practice. It could mean you are in the process of dispelling something toxic from your mind/psyche through your spiritual practice or it could mean you are being given a warning regarding some kind of psychic attack. Only you will know which it is by listening to your feelings about the dream and your intuition. If you are still not sure - you can meditate on it, ask for another dream for clarification or leave it be and trust the answer will come at the right time.

Do you have a guru? Have you been given wang/lung/tri for the yidam(s) you are reciting the mantras of?

Freja wrote:In your case it was your meditation beads that turned into the centipede which suggests you need to look at your spiritual practice.

I think Freja is onto something here. In particular, since centipedes are associated with poison within Vajrayana, I'd make sure to closely examine my practice of mantra and my state of mind during said practice. Perhaps your dream was a warning sign that your poisons are increasing, rather than decreasing, from such practice.

I must confess that, unfortunately, this was the case for me for a long time. I'd do what I felt drawn to, rather than what my gurus instructed me to do. Not only did this mean I was hopping around from practice to practice on a whim, but also I was creating the path as I went along. In the end, I read an excellent passage from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the Intro to Jamgön Kongtrul's Torch of Certainty, and realized that this behavior was reinforcing my ego, not to mention reinventing the wheel.

"The Sutras, Tantras, and Philosophical Scriptures are great in number. However life is short, and intelligence is limited, so it's hard to cover them completely. You may know a lot, but if you don't put it into practice, it's like dying of thirst on the shore of a great lake. Likewise, it happens that a common corpse is found in the bed of a great scholar." ~ Karma Chagme